front porch trash

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

You enter a thrift store. The blood starts pumping. That musty smell overwhelms you. You tear up, you start sneezing, your eyes begin to water.... tears of joy or just an allergic reaction to dust.... What will I find today? Toys? Housewares? Clothing? Junk?

Well, if you are like me you find more junk than anything else. Yes, I have had luck with toys, household items and even some clothing but the most reliable stuff I find is junk. Sometime other peoples junk is just other peoples junk.

I had an errand to run yesterday and of course I HAD to go by the GW to see what was happening. I hadn't been in a couple of weeks and was afraid they would shut their doors without taking my money!!

As I told you in a previous post, I got a bunch of vintage F-P Little People and I was looking to add to the pile for a big listing. One GW that I visit has a nice section of little toys that are 3/99cents. Almost as good as a yard sale. I manage to find something most of the time. One time I found all 26 of the alphabet animals for the F-P play mat and the play mat in another section of the store. This time didn't disappoint me. I found some Little People and once again silver, and the random wooden train track piece.

Are dog and tiger brewing up something?

What is it with Little People? Are they hoarding silver? Do we need to pay attention?All of this was in the 3/99cents bins. Now I don't think the silver teaspout strainer was really a toy. You'll poke your eye out!!

Need a little polish

Since this is not sterling, just silver plate, not a lot of value. I think in the $10-15 range. Although I found the same design here for $68. I don't think I could sleep at night if I listed it for $68, knowing what I paid for the thing! Of course, if someone wanted to purchase it for $68 I wouldn't refuse the money.......who needs sleep!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

I was researching the little people to see what I had and how much I could expect to get out of them. See the Grover and Roosevelt Little People? I didn't either at first. Grover is blue, and on the blocks at the top right corner. Roosevelt is at the bottom, 6 o'clock, purple head and yellow body. It seems that these two have been sold for up to $10 each. Gordon and Susan are also at the bottom near Roosevelt. Seems like I have a Sesame Street thing here. I probably won't list at $10 because I would like to sell them within a month, but it's nice to know that someone got the big bucks.

I don't know what I have done to the thrifting Gods to get such good thrift karma, but I hope I can keep it up.

On Saturday my yard sale buddy, my daughter SmartAss, had had several fun dentist visits this week and decided to sleep in. I ventured out on my own and only filled up one empty paper box. I had restraint....well, a little.

That's a lotta TI

The first two sales were blah. Nothing. The third one was great. I picked up TI Speak & Read, TI Speak & Math, TI Speak & Music and TI Little Maestro, Simon's Quest and a Dora Explore handheld, all for 25cents each. They all powered on and work great. Hope they all sell for big $$.

That's a lotta LPS

The next yard sale I picked up 65 LPS animals and a dozen or more Polly Pocket dolls with clothes and accessories. There were also a couple of bags of LPS accessories. At that one LPS sale I got 120 different toys and a pair of Keens sandals all for $20.

Friday, June 22, 2012

I love finding things in a bag of stuff that I purchase for another reason. And I love finding things that are treasures hiding in plain sight.

For example, when I took my Grandson home I stopped at some thrifts on the other side of town that I don't go to very often because of the distance. But I always find little gems at one of them. This time was no exception. I found these sitting on the "everything but the kitchen sink shelf", about a mile apart.They were priced at 25cents each. What? They are porcelain, marked Disney and marked Lenox and they are adorable. But 25cents is way too cheap even for this thrift store. Why? I think the person pricing realized they were part of the 7 dwarfs and 5 are missing. But did they notice that they were salt and pepper shakers? Dopey is salt and Sneezy is pepper. Of course, I did remove about 65 layers of grease and dirt to get them to this condition. New, Lenox porcelain, Disney 7 dwarfs, gold buttons and belt buckles and never used. A set sold recently for $30!!

There is a new TS across the street from this one that the profits go to homeless women and children. They have a mish-mash of stuff with prices all over the place and I always check out the zip lock bags full of odds and ends. I found all of this stuff in one bag in the toys for $1. Do you see any treasures?

Of course the treasures are easy to find now because I forgot to take a picture while they were black. I was dying to see if they were sterling!!These little people spotted the treasures right away and circled the wagons to keep them safe.The little people know bargains when they see them. Two vintage sterling baby rattles. One monogrammed from 1972 and one marked 1945 and a three ring silver teether not marked sterling.

I checked ebay prices and they vary from $10-25 depending upon the condition and age. These looked like they had been used as hammers at some point. What to do with them? Put them in a lot and list for one BIN price? Who would buy them? Someone who would scrap them for more than I could get after feebay got their cut.. Why not scrap them myself? BINGO....good idea. So SweetiePie and I ventured into a pawn shop for the first time and walked away with $25 for the two rattles and nothing for the rings. Nothing for the three rings because they were not marked sterling. That $25 covered everything that I spent that day at three thrift stores.The little ones at least $2 each and the large sailor and airplane pilot for $4 each, minimum. The pig is a cheap copy and the blocks are $store.

And I still have all of the vintage little people to list. Conservatively about $20-30 for all of them when they sell.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Well, I think I have procrastinated long enough. Maybe....I have been really busy and the blog was the last thing on my mind.

I have been yard sale-ing and picked up this HUGE batch of three big tubs of Playmobil pieces. So far I have found a house, a post office, a grocery store, a fort of some kind, a motorcycle shop, a small castle, a fire ladder truck, a rescue helicopter and lots of small pieces. I didn't know that you could go on line to Playmobil and print out the assembly instructions. Now, I really have a project!!

First, our "houseguest" nephew decided after three short months that he needed to move out...right.now! So we accomplished that with lots of trips upstairs and back aches and knees refusing to take another step.

Second, the sweet grand daughters came for a visit for several days. What to do with all of that inventory clogging up everywhere? Oh, look I have an empty room UPSTAIRS....more aching backs and knees. But it was worth all of the work to have a 6 and 7 year old in the house. Who needs sleep? and no you can't have hot dogs for every meal with an ice cream chaser, well at least not for breakfast.

Third, when my daughter came to pick up the girls their big brother decided to stay for a few days so SweetiePie Grandpa could teach him to drive a manual transmission. What???you are still a baby and babies don't drive.He volunteered to take me thrifting so he could drive. But the big thrift store involved getting on the interstate bypass and I didn't think he was ready for that, so I did the driving and we went over friction points and the like. Grandpa did take him in his little car and he did really good. Today he drove my car and did great. He has the hang of the gears and just needs practice. Oh, not my baby!! driving.

Fourth, now I have a bigger room upstairs to fit all of my ebay inventory into. Now, I have to haul all of that crap inventory up the stairs.

Where did I put that Ben-Gay? I wonder if I could thrift a hot tub and get all of the icky stuff out of it so I could actually use it? (probably not!!)

About Me

I grew up on a small farm in rural NC. I loved it and now I find myself trying to get back to those times. Waste not want not. I'm trying to get by with just my own wits. Slim pickings! I like to make what my family needs and if I can't make it then it's off to the thrift store to find what I need. I strongly believe in using what you have and using what other folks don't want. (Thanks Mom)